Reportagen om Israels attack mot en FN-skola håller inte längre

FN tvingas dementera: Israel bombade inte UNRWA-skolan

av Fred i Mellanöstern

Publicerade 03 februari 2009

Tags: Diakonia, FN, Gaza, Israel, israeler, lögner, mediekritik, Mellanöstern, Mellanösternkonflikten, Palestina, palestinier, propaganda, Röda Korset, Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå, TT, UNICEF, UNWRA

Än en gång har det visat sig att anklagelserna mot Israel var en lögn. FN-organet UNRWA erkänner nu att deras skola i Jabaliya inte alls träffades av israeliska granater, och att ingen i skolan dog. Inte heller skolgården träffades av granater, och ingen dödades där. Tvärtemot vad som påståtts, inte minst i svenska medier.

Det är efter att Kanadas största tidning, Globe & Mail, börjat gräva fram teknisk besvisning och intervjuat flera palestinska vittnen på platsen, inkl. en lärare från skolan, som UNRWA:s operationschef John Ging nu tvingats tala ut och erkänna. Under flera veckor lät palestinskledda UNRWA falska påståenden cirkulera i världspressen om att Israel skulle ha bombat eller skjutit mot FN-skolan, och att människor som tagit skydd i skolan skulle ha dött.

I själva verket föll granaterna långt utanför skolmuren, och på andra sidan gatan (se bild). Det var där ute som striderna mot Hamas pågick, och krävde 43 dödsoffer. En del splitter stänkte in på skolgården och orsakade skador, men ingen dödades.

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Klicka för större bild

Palestiniern Hazem Balousha visar reportern var de tre granaterna föll ned utanför hans bilverkstad på andra sidan gatan:

"Det var bara tre", berättar han. "Alla landade här ute på gatan".

Direkt efter händelsen sade Israel att man först blivit beskjuten från skolan av Hamas, men dementerade uttalandet efter att deras utredning visade att de blev beskjutna utanför skolan, och att det var där som Israel besvarade elden.

Igår tvingades också FN:s koordinator för palestinier, Maxwell Gaylord, bekräfta att ingen beskjutning och inga dödsoffer inträffade i al-Fakhura Ibn Rushd-skolan, eller på skolgården, rapporterar Haaretz.

UNRWA-chefen John Ging, som varje dag suttit i TV-kanaler och anklagat Israel, förnekar nu att hans organisation varit delaktig i spridningen av bluffen:

"Läs mina uttalanden," säger han. "Jag har aldrig sagt att någon dödats i skolan".

John Ging, UNRWA i Gaza

Men UNRWA-chefens undanflykter visar sig också vara en lögn. Globe & Mail citerar vad Ging sade när han stod utanför Shifasjukhuset, och känslomässigt kommenterade händelsen till den pro-palestinska propagandakanalen Al-Jaziras engelska version:

De som befann sig i skolan var familjer allihop, som sökte skydd ... Man är inte säker någonstans i Gaza.

Fred i Mellanöstern har dessutom hittat en intervju som John Ging gav till den engelskspråkiga iranska kanalen Press TV den 7 januari, där han påstod att dödsoffren krävdes "på skolan" (se video med start 3.15).

Det hände igår kväll, när 42 palestinier dödades och över 100 skadades på en FN-skola som användes som skydd...

TT har fortfarande inte rapporterat om UNRWA:s och FN:s erkännande att informationen var falsk, trots att Globe & Mail och internationella medier publicerade avslöjandena för flera dagar sedan, den 29 januari.

Även svenska UNICEF spred bluffen vidare och påstod den 9 januari att skolan "bombats". Ingen dementi har publicerats ännu. Lögnerna har också spridits vidare av flera propalestinska propagandabloggar och organisationer, men till skillnad från TT och UNICEF är det få som tar dem på allvar, och de gör inte heller anspråk på att hålla sig till fakta.

När kommer TT, UNICEF och alla de svenska medier som publicerade UNRWA:s falska information publicera organisationens erkännande och dementi?

UPPDATERING 4/2 kl. 11.08: Några timmar efter att detta inlägg postades publicerade Dagens Nyheter, till sin heder, en artikel om UNRWA:s dementi. Ingenting framgår dock om DN:s tidigare felaktighet eller om striderna mot Hamas. Varken TT, SVT, SR eller andra svenska medier har publicerat tillrättalägganden.

Sveriges skattebetalare är världens tredje största bidragsgivare till palestinierna med över 700 miljoner kronor varje år. En stor del distribueras genom det palestinskledda UNRWA, som till 99 procent drivs av palestinier. Organisationens dåvarande danske chef erkände att organisationen är infiltrerad av Hamas. UNRWA:s fd. jurist publicerade nyligen en rapport om UNRWA:s terroristkontakter, och har rekommenderat att organisationens största välgörare, USA, bör se över sin finansiering av verksamheten. Läs mer om UNRWA här.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090129.wgazaschool29/BNStory/International/home

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More information contradicting UNRWA's claims

Remember the UNRWA school in Gaza which was reputedly shelled by the Israelis during the war in Gaza with the reported deaths of 30-40 civilians who had taken refuge inside it? This was presented by Hamas and the UNRWA high command as a major atrocity. In response, the Israelis maintained that they had been returning fire from the school. After an investigation, they amended this to say the firing had come from a compound adjacent to the school; they had returned fire with three shells, one of which had hit the school by mistake.

Now it appears the school wasn't hit at all. Canada's Globe and Mail reports that, according to local eye-witnesses, those who died were all outside the school in the street where all three Israeli shells landed: While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed.

...The teacher, who refused to give his name because he said UNRWA had told the staff not to talk to the news media, was adamant: ‘Inside [the compound] there were 12 injured, but there were no dead. Three of my students were killed,' he said. ‘But they were all outside.' Hazem Balousha, who runs an auto-body shop across the road from the UNRWA school, was down the street, just out of range of the shrapnel, when the three shells hit. He showed a reporter where they landed: one to the right of his shop, one to the left, and one right in front. ‘There were only three,' he said. ‘They were all out here on the road.'

The claim that Israel had shelled refugees huddling for shelter on the school's property was therefore totally untrue.

But now look at what John Ging, UNRWA's operations director in Gaza (pictured outside the subsequently shelled UN aid store) has been saying. In an interview this week, he acknowledged that all three Israeli mortar shells landed outside the school and that ‘no one was killed in the school.'

‘I told the Israelis that none of the shells landed in the school,' he said. Why would he do that? ‘Because they had told everyone they had returned fire from gunmen in the school. That wasn't true.'

But that was only at the very beginning, when all was confusion. The Israelis quickly corrected themselves to say they had returned fire which was coming from the vicinity of the school; and then amplified after further investigation that the firing had come from a compound next to the school.

Yet look at whom Ging is pointing the finger of blame for the error!

Mr. Ging blames the Israelis for the confusion over where the victims were killed. ‘They even came out with a video that purported to show gunmen in the schoolyard. But we had seen it before,' he said, ‘in 2007.'

It's true that at the beginning the Israelis believed the Hamas missile had come from the school grounds. But contrary to Ging's claim, the IDF never claimed to have a video showing gunmen in the schoolyard during this particular incident. It said this footage showed another UNRWA school being used to fire rockets the previous year; and it said that this footage showed the school in the January 6 incident being used for mortar fire in October 2007. The story goes on:

The Israelis are the ones, [Ging] said, who got everyone thinking the deaths occurred inside the school. ‘Look at my statements,' he said. ‘I never said anyone was killed in the school. Our officials never made any such allegation.'

But as the Globe and Mail observes:

Speaking from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as the bodies were being brought in that night, an emotional Mr. Ging did say: ‘Those in the school were all families seeking refuge. ... There's nowhere safe in Gaza.'

...The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs got the location right, for a short while. Its daily bulletin cited ‘early reports' that ‘three artillery shells landed outside the UNRWA Jabalia Prep. C Girls School ...' However, its more comprehensive weekly report, published three days later, stated that ‘Israeli shelling directly hit two UNRWA schools ...' including the one at issue. Such official wording helps explain the widespread news reports of the deaths in the school, but not why the UN agencies allowed the misconception to linger. ‘I know no one was killed in the school,' Mr. Ging said. ‘But 41 innocent people were killed in the street outside the school. Many of those people had taken refuge in the school and wandered out onto the street.'

This is highly disingenuous. As I recall, no-one ever said the school building was hit by the Israeli shells. What was claimed from the start was that people in the compound in front of the school -- ie outside the school building but in its grounds -- had been killed. And from the start Ging displayed a high degree of outrage that refugees had been shelled as they sheltered on UNRWA school property. The UN reported after a press conferencethat day:

Decrying mounting civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its military offensive there some 11 days ago, the head of United Nations relief operations in the enclave today demanded an independent investigation into a spate of overnight and early-morning air strikes on several clearly marked schools... ‘It's quite a horrific scene here today,' said John Ging... In addition to the 30 people killed, 55 others had been injured by three Israeli artillery shells landing on the perimeter of a United Nations school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, where civilians had fled seeking refuge from the ongoing violence...Emphasizing that all United Nations schools in Gaza were clearly marked, he said they flew the Organization's flag and Israel had long been provided with the GPS coordinates of all its installations in the area. ‘So the people in Gaza feel that nowhere is safe...' [my emphasis]

Having made an incendiary false allegation which helped whip up an eruption of hatred and violence towards Israel and Jewish people around the world, Ging and UNRWA took until this week to correct this falsehood - and then blamed Israel for the damage that the error had done.

The only good thing about all this is that people can now begin to get an inkling of the truth about UNRWA - that this supposedly impartial body supervising the tinderbox of Gaza is actually a major player in fuelling the murderous frenzy against Israel at the heart of the Middle East impasse.

The UN can never be the solution; it is the problem.

Local residents confirm Israeli account: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/MNQ2154NVN.DTL

UNRWA SpokesmanChris Gunness'fallacious statements: http://i3.democracynow.org/2009/1/7/40_killed_in_israeli_strike_on

Gunness misleadsand induces into error: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/07/israel.gaza.school/

Gunness misleads againand witness lies about school attack: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24886577-15084,00.htM